Tributes paid to Southport resident and woman of great faith Kathleen Nooney, 106

KATHLEEN Nooney’s 106 years of life were celebrated yesterday at St Marie’s Roman Catholic Church.

Kathleen, thought to have been Southport’s oldest resident, fell while walking to Midnight Mass at St Marie’s on Christmas Eve and passed away on January 20 in hospital.

Born in 1903, when Arthur Balfour was Prime Minister and women campaigned for universal suffrage, she moved from Barrow-in-Furness to Southport in the 1950s, where she worked as a seamstress.

Kathleen was the first housekeeper at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, when it opened over 50 years ago. One of 11 children, she met her late husband, James, in retirement. The couple lived on Park Road West.

Terry Jones, who was a friend of Kathleen’s and fellow parishioner at St Marie’s, said: “Kathleen was fiercely independent, and it was that quality that inspired her to attend Mass everyday. Sadly, her fall on the way to Midnight Mass led to her death. Kathleen lived on her own, but she did enjoy the support of her four nieces. I admired her and her zealous faith. She was looking forward to her 107th birthday in February.”

Father John Heneghan, parish priest of St Marie’s Church in Seabank Road, had known her for six-and-a-half years.

He said: “She used to walk to Mass every day. She just loved coming to church and everything else revolved around that. It was the centre of her life. It showed itself in a lot of her actions. She had such a lovely kind face.

“She didn’t just go to church – she lived it. It was so much part of her life. She will be so missed because the people loved her so much. She was so young in spirit and was such a lovely person.

“We are delighted for her that she has gone to heaven because she was longing to go and couldn’t understand why God hadn’t taken her.

“But it was because she was needed to be an example it us all.”

In recent months when she was not able to get to Mass she would still pray at midday every day at her home.

“She will be remembered as a great example and as a very beautiful child of God.

“She was so happy because of her faith and the hope and love that her faith brought to her.”